“I could do that,” he mused, pulling a knife from one of his black boots and throwing it from one hand to the other. He tossed it in my direction, but I wasn’t fast enough and it fell to the floor with a clatter. I let it lay there, wishing I’d never said anything. “But you might drop it,” he finished with a smirk.
“I wasn’t ready,” I argued.
“Would you rather have the knife or be the knife? It’s that simple. And that hard.”
He opened his hand and the knife whizzed into it. I’d seen Mombi do the same thing before. He slid the knife back into his boot, then spread his arms out wide at his sides, daring me to punch him.
I curled my hand into a fist and took a weak, halfhearted swing at him. Nox hopped back and rolled his eyes. “Give me a break,” he said. “You have to try or it’s no fun.”
Before I could respond, Nox took his own jab at me, aiming right for my chin. I rocked back on my heels, barely getting out of the way in time, and then, without thinking about it, I hit back. For real now.
This time I connected square in the center of Nox’s chest. My fist hit a hard wall of flesh and muscle. My knuckles stung from the impact, but he didn’t flinch. It was like he hadn’t even felt it.
All he did was laugh. “All right,” he said. “Well, that’s something, at least. Now do it again. This time, I’ll try, too.”
I looked at the cocky expression on his face. I wanted to wipe it off, just to show I could. So I swung with all my strength and almost fell over from the momentum as he stepped easily out of the way. His smirk hadn’t wavered for a moment.
“Keep going.”
I kept punching, getting angrier and angrier with every try. Nox dodged each blow as smoothly as if I were moving in slow motion.
It took me until I was sweaty and out of breath to realize that something wasn’t quite right. Nox was more than just fast.
“That isn’t fair,” I said. “You’re using magic.”
“Of course I am. Lesson one: she’ll be using everything she has against you—and I promise it will be a lot more than I’m using right now.”
He had a point.
“Fine,” I said. “Then why are we even bothering at all?”
When he opened his mouth to reply, I took it as an invitation to hit him right in the solar plexus. His eyebrows shot up as his arrogant smirk transformed into a grin.
“Aha,” he said. “Lesson two: your fists aren’t your only weapon. Your weapons won’t be your only weapon either. Dorothy’s biggest vulnerability is her—”
I kicked him in the stomach with everything I had, and he went stumbling backward, his mouth wide with surprise. That would show him not to underestimate me.
But instead of retreating, or even slowing down, he came flying right back at me. This time I was ready for him. I ducked.
Over the next hour, Nox didn’t let up. He just kept coming at me, using his fists and feet and elbows and knees and everything else he had. The whole time, he never stopped talking—pointing out everything I was doing wrong.
And everything I was doing wrong was everything. The way I was standing. The way I was avoiding his gaze. The way I was holding my hands.
But for all I was doing wrong, there was one thing I was doing right. I wasn’t letting up any more than he was. I was aching and exhausted, but I kept going.
“Stay loose,” he said. I didn’t know how he had the breath to keep talking when he was moving twice as fast as I was. “Don’t waste your energy keeping your muscles tight. Don’t focus on where I am. Focus on where I’m going to be.”
Before the sentence was finished, Nox was gone. I spun around just as he materialized behind me, already ready for him, and caught him right in the jaw. Finally, for the first time, he flinched in pain. But before I could draw my arm away, he’d grabbed me by the wrist and held my closed fist against his face. I tried to pull free, but I couldn’t.
He just stared at me, his gaze intense. I couldn’t look away any more than I could move my arm. Energy crackled between us, and I felt a strange pull to him. Moth to flame. Magnet to magnet. Stupid girl to impossible, slightly mean witch boy. Wizard. Whatever.
“Close your eyes,” he said. “I want you to feel something.”
“I already feel something,” I said. “Tired.”
“Just do it,” Nox said.
So I closed my eyes and felt a strange, warm energy pulsing through my body, starting where my fist still touched his face and traveling up through my arm and shoulder into my chest. It wasn’t hot and it wasn’t cold. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before—including the time when I was little and I put my finger in a lightbulb socket to see what would happen. That had hurt like there was no tomorrow. Like the surge of electricity was killing every cell as it flowed through my arm. This was the opposite. This felt like every inch of me was waking up.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” He let go of my hand and it dropped to my side, heavy as stone. “It’s magic,” he said.
Suddenly I felt a breeze. I opened my eyes.
We weren’t in the training area anymore. Instead, we were standing at the edge of a grassy plateau that jutted out from the mouth of a cave at the top of a mountain.
The sun was bright and perfect and the sky was brilliant blue with just the slightest tinge of lavender. I looked down over the edge of the precipice we stood on and caught my breath. We were don’t-look-down high. We were skyscraper-high. Not that I had ever been in one, but I imagined this is what it felt like. The drop between us and the treetops was dizzying. Below us was a vast expanse of wildness.
In the distance, fields and flowers gave way to a lush, dark forest. Farther on the horizon was a hazy, shimmering mountain range that blocked the rest of Oz from my view—mountains so high that their peaks were hidden by a thick veil of quickly moving clouds.
Everything was still and quiet. This was a different quiet from the creepy, dead quiet of Munchkin Country. This quiet was pristine and charmed and full of life. It felt like Nox and I were the only two people in an undiscovered world.
“How’d we get out here?” I asked. My voice came out in a whisper.
He looked at me like I was the dumbest person alive. “You have to stop asking those kinds of questions,” he said. “You know exactly how we got out here.”
Of course I knew. It was the same as the answer he’d given me before.
“Magic,” I said under my breath, without even really meaning to.
“Yup,” he said. “I zapped us up here. I can’t work the same kinds of teleportation spells that Mombi can, so we didn’t go far. The Order’s headquarters is all inside these caves.” He gestured at the cave opening behind us.
I breathed deep, enjoying the first fresh air I’d tasted since I’d been taken to the Emerald Palace who knows how long ago. I felt it buzzing in my lungs and my whole body tingled. It was the same feeling I’d felt back in the caves when I’d touched Nox’s face and closed my eyes.
“I think I feel it,” I said finally. “The magic.”
“You can’t not. Not up here,” he said. “This is Mount Gillikin. It’s one of the most magical spots left in all of Oz. Dorothy hasn’t quite gotten to stealing it yet—it’s too much trouble. See those mountains a ways off? They move. Every night, they rebuild themselves; every day they’re different than they were the day before. Can’t build roads through them. Can’t even draw a map. You never know what you’re going to get. Some days they might be covered in snow, other days they could be so hot you’ll get sunstroke. Or anything in between. People go up those mountains and they never come back. Sure, you can get past them—you can fly, or teleport, or whatever—but it’s not easy. They’re part of what keeps Gillikin Country more protected than the rest of Oz. Still, it’s only a matter of time.”